Saturday, April 14, 2012

Atheist Questions William Lane Craig About God's Morality

William Lane Craig is a top notch
debater. I've enjoyed many chuckles while watching him destroy
(figuratively) atheists on YouTube. The big disagreement I normally
have with Craig is his compromise on creation but that is the subject
of another post. What impresses me most about him is his command of
logical arguments. Usually Craig's arguments are so unassailable
that even the renown Richard Dawkins has refused to debate him again.
Anyone who has followed my blog for a while has probably seen a
little of Craig's influence in my posts because I've learned a lot
from listening to him. You can imagine my disappointment, then, when
he seemed to stumble over a rather ordinary question from an atheist
(at least I assume he's an atheist from the headline because he
doesn't identify himself as such in the video). As usual, I've
included the video here for your review. It's only 2:57 long so you
will probably want to take a moment to review before we continue. Go
ahead. I'll wait...

If you've never watched Dr. Craig
before, one argument he frequently uses for the existence of God is
the existence of absolute morality. If there is no God, then there
is no objective morality. Things like right and wrong would be
subjective and relative to what is expedient. A cat, for example,
might kill a mouse for sport. If nature is all there is, then a
human killing another human would be no more wrong than any animal
killing another. One can call an atrocity like the Holocaust
objectively evil only by assuming there is an ultimate standard of
good and evil. In a universe without God, such a standard does not
exist. If someone believes there is a such thing as absolute right and wrong, he must admit there is an ultimate Law-Giver whose judgment supersedes every other person's opinion. That's Craig's point and I believe it's a compelling
argument.

The argument for the existence of
objective morality must have been one of the topics Craig had
discussed the night of this video. The atheist in this video
challenges Craig on the “morality of God” by citing several
verses where, he believes, the Bible endorses immoral practices. He
starts with a reference to Exodus 21:20-21 but then rattles off a
long lists of “questionable” verses. As I've said, this is a
fairly common criticism raised of Christianity – one I'm sure Craig
must have heard before so I would think he'd be practiced in
answering it. In this video, he acted like he was winging it.

First, I'm not sure why Craig asked why
the questioner seemed so angry. This smacks of the logical fallacy
of “appeal
to motive”; that is, he seems to say “you are only asking
this question because you are angry with God.” He even suggests
that the questioner was too wound up emotionally to understand his
argument. Maybe Craig was genuinely curious about the questioner and
wasn't trying to accomplish anything by raising this point. It just
struck me as odd he would even go there.

However, what disappointed me most
about Craig's response was how he immediately abandoned the God of
Christianity and the Bible. He said that his point was only a
generic argument for theism and the existence of a personal supreme
being thus his argument is consistent with Christianity, Judaism,
Islam, some Hindu beliefs, and deism. Really, Craig? Is that how
you want to defend Christianity? You seem to actually retreat from
the Bible.

Now, it would be terribly presumptuous
of me to tell Dr. Craig, who holds a PhD in Philosophy and is a
veteran debater, how he should have answered the question but I'm
going to anyway. It would have been a mistake to begin to try to address
every verse the critic cited so I can understand why Craig didn't do that. It's seems obvious to me, though, that he should have used the
opportunity of the critic's question to double down on his argument.
Instead of saying (I'm paraphrasing), “I was only trying to prove
theism and not the Bible,” Craig should have said, “If there is
no God, then on what grounds do you consider these verses from the
Bible to be morally objectionable?” By putting the burden back
onto the critic, Craig would have accomplished at least two things:
1) he would have reinforced his argument and put the critic in the
position of having to address the real point of Craig's argument
instead of raising red herrings and 2) Craig would not have made
those “questionable” verses in the Bible seem indefensible.

The verses cited by this critic are
certainly worth discussing and I may use them as the subjects of
future posts. But, as they say, we must make first things first. If
someone believes some passage from the Bible is morally “wrong,”
from where does he derive his objective standard of right and wrong?
The “Supreme Personal Being” Craig alludes to in his
lectures/debates is not some generic god of any religion. He is the
only God – the God of the Bible. He is the ultimate Judge of what
is right and wrong. There is no objective morality apart from Him
and so no one can question His morality (or the morality of the
Bible) without first realizing He exists.

RKBentley

About me

I'm a husband, a father, and a Christian. Being a Christian is not something I do on Sundays but rather it is who I am. My faith influences everything I do. Christians are commanded to always be ready to give an answer – a reason for the hope that is in us. I take that command seriously. Psalm 19:7 says that the testimony of the LORD is sure. If we base all of our thinking on the Bible, we can't go wrong. I started this blog to encourage other Christians and challenge critics on a variety of issues. Whether you agree or disagree with me, you're welcome here. Please follow me on Twitter and friend me on FaceBook! God bless!!